Galatians 3:16 “To Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ.”
Galatians 3:29 “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
These verses in Galatians chapter 3 are often used as prooftexts by those who believe the New Testament church has either replaced the ethnic nation of Israel (Replacement Theology) or is a fulfillment of ethnic Israel, and has inherited the Old Testament promises made to Israel – thereby replacing Israel (Covenant Theology).
Here is how both Replacement and Covenant Theologians deconstruct verses like Gensis 12:3b (blessing to all mankind), Genesis 13:14-15 (the unconditional Land Covenant) and Genesis 17:8 (the “everlasting possession”).
Gensis 12:3b “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Genesis 13:14-15 “And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: ‘Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are – northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your seed forever.”
Genesis 17:8 “I give to you and your seed after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
It is known as the “Argument for the “Singular Seed“:
They argue that the New Testament explicitly redefines the “lineage” of Abraham, removing the biological requirement (ethnic Israel, as descended through Abraham) and replacing it with the spiritual requirement (spiritual Israel, by God’s grace through one’s faith in Jesus Christ).
Texts used to argue for ethnic Israel no longer entitled to the Land Promises:
First, in Galatians 3:6-8, God explains through Paul that true children of Abraham are by faith as provided by God Himself in the Gospel of Jesus Christ: “Just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Therefore, know that only those who are of faith are children of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’”
Secondly, in Galatians 3:16, Paul writes: “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ.”
Finally, in Galatians 3:29, Paul writes: “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
Their Argument:
Replacement and Covenant Theologians argue that Paul is teaching us how to read the Old Testament book of Genesis. They claim Paul is saying the promise was never ultimately about Abraham’s plural descendants (ethnic Jews), but about Abraham’s singular Descendant (Jesus).
Their Conclusion:
Replacement and Covenant Theologians claim the “specific Jewish lineage” was merely a delivery mechanism to get to Jesus. Once Jesus arrived, the “lineage” promise was fulfilled in Him.
If you want the inheritance (the Land/the World), you don’t get it by being a child of Jacob; you get it by being “in Christ.”
3 Challenges that Demonstrate Why this Argument of “Singular Seed” Fails:
- No One believes the Church has inherited the Promised Land
- Logical Fallacy of False Equivalency in Galatians 3:16 between the Church to Israel
- Exegetical Error of Illegitimate Totality Transfer of Galatians 3:16
In this second of 3 articles, we examine Challenge #3 è The Exegetical Error of Illegitimate Totality Transfer of Galatians 3:16 between the Church to Israel.
We start with the hermeneutic of “context” when the same word with multiple meanings is used across multiple passages. It is crucial to know the context in which that word is used.
Seed / Offspring / Descendant = zera` = zeh’-rah è appears 230X throughout Old Testament, in nearly every time period and genre (category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content).
The 3 main uses of “seed” or “offspring” or “descendant” are:
- Physical Seed: The substance by which plants reproduce.
- “Then God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with seed in it, according to their kinds.’ ” (Genesis 1:11)
- Physical Seed: Biological offspring, whether immediate children or remote descendants.
- Israel as an ethnic group – a nation – collectively is “the seed of Abraham” (Psalm 105:6), an identity carrying covenant privilege (Deuter. 10:15) and accountability (Deuter. 28:46).
- Prophets console the Israelite exiles: “Your seed and your name shall remain” (Isaiah 66:22). “I will plant them in their land, and they will never again be uprooted” (Amos 9:15).
- Spiritual Seed: The royal, Messianic line – the promise of a coming Redeemer.
- The Suffering Servant: “He will see His seed; He will prolong His days” (Isaiah 53:10)
- The singular “seed” is Christ: all who are “in Christ” become Abraham’s seed, “heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). This Old Testament term here opens into the New Testament church.
The Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob): God gives Unconditional Land Promises to the Physical SEED
Illegitimate Totality Transfer Exegesis of Galatians 3:16 = This is also an exegetical word study error, as explained by Professor Daniel Wallace (Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary), in his December 8, 2014 article ‘Lexical Fallacies by Linguists’, as the ‘Illegitimate Totality Transfer’ fallacy, where the one interpretating the text “assumes that all the uses that occur at a given time apply in any given instance.”
Professor D.A. Carson (former Professor of New Testament, Trinity Divinity School), in his book ‘Exegetical Word Study Fallacies’, calls this ‘Illegitimate Totality Transfer’ fallacy by the synonymous name ‘Unwarranted Adoption of an Expanded Semantic Field’, defining this fallacy as “Applying the entirety of the word’s semantic value when its context expressly prohibits one from doing so.”
The example provided by Dr. Carson is from Acts 7:38 “This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles[b] to give to us,” Dr. Carson explains the exegetical error below:
“Stephen refers to Moses as ‘the one who was in the ‘CONGREGATION’ (the Greek word ἐκκλησίᾳ) in the wilderness.’ Perhaps out of a desire to view Israel as the ‘church,’ one might translate or interpret ἐκκλησίᾳ here as ‘church.’
While certain theological positions do view Israel as the Old Testament church, one could not base this conclusion solely on a translation of ἐκκλησίᾳ here as ‘church.’ Such a translation would be to import the entirety of the word’s meaning in the New Testament when the context clearly restricts the meaning to ‘gathering’ or ‘assembly.’”
The point here is that it is sloppy and incorrect to take the meaning of a word in one context, and apply that same meaning when that same word is used in other contexts. One cannot say that every time a word is used in one context it must be used that same way everywhere else, in all other contexts.
We don’t make this error in our everyday language, but we seem to make it a lot in interpreting the Bible. Professor Goeman gives us an example of this:
“In our everyday language, we might use the word ‘bank’ in referring to the institution that is holding my money. But if I’m playing basketball and I make a ‘bank’ shot’, everyone knows we don’t apply the same context here for ‘bank’ as ‘an institution holding my money.’ But rather that I made a shot that banked off the backboard.”
Summary
To just say that some Scripture that references “seed”, or “offspring”, or “descendant”, or “son”, or “congregation”, is always used the same way across all Scriptures where it is being used… is sloppy exegesis.
We need to admit that the logical argument being used that how we interpret Galatians 3:16 for “seed” is how we can interpret the entire Old Testament is incorrect.
“The Evidence of Faith’s Substance”_Article #662
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